\hspace before \section?

Question

I would like to add a space before a section heading.

I have tried:

\hspace[*]{5pt}\setkomafont{section}{\fontsize{45}{40}\selectfont  
\fontspec{Mathilde}}

unsuccessfully. I realise that Latex usually discards white space at the start of a line e.g. a section heading.

I would appreciate any pointers how I may achieve a space before a section heading of 0.5 inches.

\documentclass[11pt,english,british,twoside,openany]{scrbook}
\usepackage{mystyle}

\begin{document}

\title{\mytitle}
\author{}
\date{}

\frontmatter
\maketitle
\begin{titlepage}
\begin{flushright}
{\huge \mytitle}
\par\end{flushright}{\huge \par}
\end{titlepage}

\begin{titlepage}
\noindent\includegraphics[width=4in,height=2in]{../img/titr_ben_sig}
\vspace*{0.5in}
\begin{flushright}
\Huge{Tears in the Rain}
\par\end{flushright}{\Huge \par}

\clearpage
\thispagestyle{empty}

\begin{center}
\emph{Copyright}
\end{center}
\begin{center}
\textcopyright{ 2014 Ben Francis All rights reserved.}
\end{center}
\vspace*{0.5in}
\begin{center}
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.5\paperwidth}
\end{minipage}
\end{center}
\vspace*{0.5in}
\begin{center}
ISBN:
\end{center}
\vspace*{0.2in}
\begin{center}
A CIP Record for this book is available from the British
Library.
\end{center}
\vspace*{0.1in}
\begin{center}
Typeset in \LaTeXe
\end{center}
\end{titlepage}

\pagenumbering{gobble}% Remove page numbers (and reset to 1)
\tableofcontents

\input{matter.tex}

\end{document}[/MWE]

My style file is:

[MWE]
\ProvidesPackage{mystyle}
\usepackage{lettrine}
%\usepackage{blindtext}
\usepackage[automark,headsepline,footsepline=.25pt]{scrlayer-scrpage}
\usepackage{microtype}
\usepackage{ragged2e}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\graphicspath{ {../img/} }
\usepackage{wrapfig}
\usepackage[british]{babel}
\pagestyle{scrheadings}
\addtokomafont{pageheadfoot}{\slshape}
\addtokomafont{pagehead}{\normalsize}
\addtokomafont{pagefoot}{\normalsize}
\addtokomafont{disposition}{\rmfamily}% rm for chapter headings
%\addtokomafont{trajon pro}{\rmfamily}
%\ohead{\pagemark} %Page Number
%\ihead{\mytitle} %Book Title
\chead{\textbf {Ben Francis}}
\ofoot{} %Author Name
\ifoot{} % Chapter Number
\lehead{\textbf \pagemark}
%\cehead{Ben Francis}
\rohead{\textbf \pagemark}
\cohead{\textbf {\mytitle}}
\setkomafont{section}{\textit}{\normalsize}
\renewcommand\thepart{\Alph{part}}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\linespread{1.05}
\parindent=0.25in
\parskip=2pt
%removes overrun on outside margin
\usepackage{hyphenat}
\tolerance=1000
\hyphenpenalty=1000
\setmainfont{Linux Libertine O} %clear font, typographers quote marks
\renewcommand*{\partpagestyle}{empty}
\usepackage{geometry}
\geometry{paperwidth=5.06in,paperheight=7.81in,
verbose,
tmargin=0.75in,
bmargin=0.75in,
inner=0.75in,
outer=0.5in,
headheight=0.1in,
headsep=0.15in,
footskip=0.45in,
twoside}
\newcommand{\mytitle}{Tears in the Rain} 
\newcommand{\emptx}[1]{\textit{#1}}

%Add space above chapter titles
\usepackage{titlesec}

\titleformat{\chapter}[display]
{\normalfont\huge\bfseries}{\chaptertitlename\ \thechapter}{20pt}{\normalsize}
\titlespacing*{\chapter}{0pt}{25pt}{1pt}%Second number changes space
%amount

\hspace[*]{5pt}\setkomafont{section}{\fontsize{45}{40}\selectfont
\fontspec{Mathilde}}
\setkomafont{subsection}{\small}
\setkomafont{subsubsection}{\small}
\setkomafont{paragraph}{\normalsize}
\setkomafont{subparagraph}{\normalsize}

Answer 1

Use \RedeclareSectionCommand to set the indent of the section title. Using this command you can also change the font:

\RedeclareSectionCommand[
  indent=.5in,
  font=\fontsize{45}{40}\selectfont\mdseries\mathilde
]{section}

Note that I have reduced your code for the following example:

Code:

\documentclass{scrbook}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\linespread{1.05}
\setlength\parindent{.25in}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\newfontfamily\mathilde{Mathilde}

\addtokomafont{disposition}{\rmfamily}

    \RedeclareSectionCommand[
      indent=.5in,
      font=\fontsize{45}{40}\selectfont\mdseries\mathilde
    ]{section}

\begin{document}
\section{Section}
\lipsum[1-20]
\end{document}

---

Additional remarks:

• It is not recommended to use titlesec with a KOMA-Script class. You will get warnings. Use \RedeclareSectionCommand and other KOMA-Script possibilities instead.
• Do not set a \parskip manually. KOMA-Script classes know a parskip option with different values. Note that it is unusual to use a \parindent and a \parskip. If you really want set \parindent to 2pt use the KOMA-Script command \setparsizes{.25in}{2pt}{0pt plus 1fil}. But this \parskip may cause your problem in Book Layout in Latex.
• Use \addtokomafont and \setkomafont to change the font of the header and the page number in the header.

Answer 2

i'm not a user of the koma classes, but the structure of the sectioning commands is generally parallel across document classes.

this is the definition of \section for scrbook:

\newcommand\section{\@startsection{section}{1}{\z@}%
  {-3.5ex \@plus -1ex \@minus -.2ex}%
  {2.3ex \@plus.2ex}%
  {\ifnum \scr@compatibility>\@nameuse{scr@v@2.96}\relax
    \setlength{\parfillskip}{\z@ plus 1fil}\fi
    \raggedsection\normalfont\sectfont\nobreak\size@section}%
}

what you want to do is change the argument {\z@} after the {1} to be 5pt (or whatever amount of indentation you want). this can be done either with \renewcommand or by using the "patch" mechanism as described in Please tutor the usage of patchcmd and xpatch.

edit: as requested by the op, here are the details of the two change methods. first, redefining the complete command:

\renewcommand\section{\@startsection{section}{1}{5pt}%
  {-3.5ex \@plus -1ex \@minus -.2ex}%
  {2.3ex \@plus.2ex}%
  {\ifnum \scr@compatibility>\@nameuse{scr@v@2.96}\relax
    \setlength{\parfillskip}{\z@ plus 1fil}\fi
    \raggedsection\normalfont\sectfont\nobreak\size@section}%
}

here, the change is made by a patch; this form requires an additional package:

\usepackage{xpatch}

\xpatchcmd{\section}
  {{1}{\z@}}
  {{1}{5pt}}
  {}{}

5pt seems very small to me. the width of the usual paragraph indentation for this class is 1em which, for 10pt text, would typically be 10pt.